Do you feel that you want to be a more mindful, blissful guy? Then this article is for you. Practicing mindfulness has helped guide me on how to be a blissful guy, and it can for you too.
A blissful guy is someone who is not bogged down by the stresses of daily life. He is someone who is in control of his emotions and is able to manage them effectively. He has a positive attitude and is always looking on the bright side of things. He also has a healthy mindset and is able to deal with difficult situations in a constructive way. Finally, he’s someone who enjoys living in the present moment and doesn’t get caught up in thoughts of the past or the future.
Mindfulness is the art of being aware and attentive to the present moment. It means living in the here and now instead of worrying about past or future events, which we cannot change anyway. It also includes practicing gratitude and kindness towards oneself as well as others. Mindfulness can help us feel less stressed or anxious by helping us deal more effectively with difficult emotions such as anger, sadness, disappointment. I’m not saying that it’s easy. It is simple, however. You might have heard that mindfulness takes practice before it becomes natural but don’t give up because it’s worth it.
KEY POINTS
- Learn how to be a more blissful man managing your emotions, attitude, and mindset.
- Applying mindfulness principles will regulate feelings and improve overall well-being.
How to Be a Blissful Guy Navigating Emotions
Emotions can be a tricky thing to navigate. At times it may seem like they’re beyond our awareness and our control. We may find feelings having a significant influence on our day. Thoughts create emotions, both often happening subconsciously. Applying mindfulness principles to your daily life can regulate your feelings, attitudes better, and subsequently, your mindset. Essentially, our emotions and mindfulness go hand in hand.
All of the things you encounter in your environment every day – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people, the news, the social posts, the videos – all of these are pushing all sorts of your buttons. These are the buttons that activate feelings that, subtly and often imperceptibly, trigger thoughts that then trigger reactions. These are the reactions that you may find controlling your behavior, often in ways that are, shall we say, less than ideal. That’s putting in mildly.
This vicious cycle – all the things in our environment subconsciously triggering feelings, which subconsciously trigger thought, beginning reactions that govern our behavior – will continue to keep happening unless you start to pay attention to what’s going on. That awareness allows you to gain understanding, which can allow you to break that cycle. To not let your thoughts, feelings, ultimately your environment to dictate and control how you react.
Enter Mindfulness
This is where mindfulness comes in. Many of us have may be familiar with mindfulness as a means of stress reduction or a way to calm ourselves and keep focus. While these can be the results of practicing mindfulness, it is so much more. Mindfulness is a powerful technique that can be applied instantly and in almost every aspect of your life.
The practice can take many different forms and involves allowing yourself to be immersed in the present moment as much as possible, without judgment or a desire for things to be different than they are. Instead, you are present, aware, and connected to your surroundings with positive curiosity and openness. Practicing mindfulness, and applying it to all aspects of your life, allows you to improve your relationship with yourself, which inevitably leads to a more authentic, fulfilling life.
You might be thinking, “This sounds all great and good, a little too simplistic and idealistic though. Doesn’t seem really possible for me,” or words to that effect. And this is where you will need to apply two of the fundamental principles of mindfulness – acceptance, and non-attachment to an outcome.
What does it mean to be mindful?
Acceptance is taking things for what they are, nothing more. It’s letting go of your desire for things to be different from what they are. That doesn’t mean you can’t change your experience or your circumstance. Someone says something to you that you don’t like. Fact. Period. Full stop. You don’t have any control over that. It happened. Instead of wishing they hadn’t, getting caught up in the maelstrom of your feelings about it, or ruminating on why they said that, accept they said it and know you can control how you choose to react.
Non-attachment is not holding on to a result of belief in the way things will go. The future hasn’t happened yet. Stay in the present, accept things how they are, control what you can control, and be confident that things will happen exactly as they should. Maybe it ends up being a learning event – things didn’t go the way you wanted, but they happened as they should for you to learn from it.
How do you become a mindful guy?
Many of us go through our day looking forward to something else. Maybe you’re going through the monotony of the 9 to 5, and you’re looking forward to getting done with work. Perhaps you and your partner are going to cook a fantastic dinner together. Maybe your partner is waiting for you with a bottle of wine. Maybe your boss calls right at the end of your day with a fire drill project. Maybe your partner is exhausted, wants takeout, and just discovered an allergy to sulfites in wine.
You can’t control any of that. Wanting things to be a certain way and being upset when they are not is just carrying that false belief that you can control those things. Your head may understand you’re not in control, but your subconscious may not.
Many people do things during their day simply get to somewhere else. You want to get work done so you can get to that dinner with your partner. A fundamental idea that stems from mindfulness is that everything you do matters, even if they are the filler tasks or administrative tasks of your day. Your workday is going to end. The sun is going to go down. The time for dinner will come. What you do and how you spend your time is what matters and what you can control.
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How do you put it into practice?
A mindfulness practice is just that, practice. It requires consistency, where you learn to change the way you view things by becoming aware of them. And you can “practice” mindfulness in any and every situation and moment in your day. At work, for example. The truth is, almost all of us have to work. But not all of us make an effort to try and be as present as possible.
It’s almost like you go on autopilot. You’re merely getting through your workday with the intent to enjoy the other hours of the week. What if there was a way to perhaps not enjoy, per se, but at least, go through those hours with purpose and intention and without all the struggle with the idea of ‘having to work’?
There isn’t a universal solution that will make you completely happy during your 9 to 5. Only you can do that from within. Mindfulness can provide you with a strategy to at least be completely present during these hours. Being present and being happy are entirely different things. Still, if you’re able to be as present in these work hours, it might be just enough to bolster your mood and mindset in a way that brings about greater satisfaction and, consequently, some semblance of happiness.
How do you practice being present?
The art of being present comes from applying yourself wholeheartedly to what it is that you are doing. Naturally, if what you’re doing doesn’t align with your passions and goals, it can be a lot harder to do. You always have a choice. Being present involves the physical act of doing the task at hand and being mentally present. The mental presence will likely improve the quality of your time doing the task, and it’s also one of the core fundamentals of mindfulness practice.
This is easier said than done but try your best to be as present, for as much as you can, every day for the next week. Take note if there is any effect on your mood. Perhaps it’s better; perhaps it might not be, ask yourself why is that? Is it the work you’re doing? Are you stressed out from other problems at home? Being present means acknowledging these kinds of thoughts that arise and not simply pushing them aside by inundating yourself with more work or telling yourself that you’re too busy to deal with them.
Tips for Meditating
A great start to practicing mindfulness is meditation. This type of meditation isn’t where you sit down and simply try to ‘clear your mind’ or have no thoughts. Thoughts are going to come, even to the most experienced of meditators. It’s how we deal with them that matters. Think of yourself sitting on a bank by a river. As the water flows, boats also come floating by. Vessels in different shapes, sizes, for various purposes.
These are your thoughts. And like your thoughts, the boats are going to come whether you want them to or not; whether you futility try to stop them or not. You have a choice to either jump on one of the boats and go for a ride (getting caught up and distracted in thought) or merely recognizing it for what it is, accept it’s there, and move on. It, too, will move on.
The type of meditation of staying present involves sitting down, closing your eyes, and deliberately allowing your thoughts to arise naturally. These thoughts are essential for you and are deserving of sincere acknowledgment. Many of us numb ourselves to these thoughts by keeping busy throughout our day and not consciously paying attention to them. This is doing us a disservice because these thoughts are a true reflection of our character and help us realize what kind of immediate concerns we need to address.
Some thoughts may be relatively random, and you’ll be able to filter them out quite quickly. However, do your best to pay attention to those, more serious, thoughts – the fears, the anxieties, the worries, the stress. Ask yourself what you can do to address some of these concerns, perhaps so that you can relieve yourself of some of these unnecessary stressors.
Meditation in this context is like taking stock of your mental reservoir and seeing what it is that you want, need, or need to let go of. It’s a healthy practice that allows you to move forward and be more present in your day-to-day activities. You can be more present because you have less mental chatter to cloud your mind, and you’re able to be more focused on the task at hand, whatever it is.
Set Out On Your Journey
This journey of practicing mindfulness should not be overly taxing. If anything, you should slowly feel a sense of liberation from a lot of your self-created mental constraints that have been slowly creating over your lifetime. Note that mindfulness is a journey of self-discovery. You may perhaps uncover some things about yourself that you did not expect or don’t want to acknowledge. However, understanding yourself is one of the critical tenets of living a full, authentic, and purposeful life. Happiness is not a destination; it’s a journey. And I hope that your journey of mindfulness will be filled with as many moments of joy as possible.
Practicing mindfulness, and applying it to all aspects of your life, allows you to improve your relationship with yourself, which inevitably leads to a more authentic, fulfilling life.
“Good questions outrank easy answers.” – Paul A. Samuelson (American economist)
- How can you start to incorporate mindfulness more into your daily activities?
- What are some situations you’ve experienced lately where your emotions were more in control of your actions and state of mind?
- What is one thing you can do today to move toward becoming a more mindful person?
Want more? Get the free guide “Quiet Confidence: A Men’s Guide to Living a Free, Authentic, Joyful, Centered, & Purposeful Life“
This workbook will introduce mindfulness as a foundation for living a more deliberate, authentic, purposeful life of peace, freedom, health, and fulfillment.
